Italian validation of the Transformative Utopian Impulse for Planetary Health Scale (TUIPHS-I) and its incremental validity in the relationship between ecological attitudes and behaviors

Introduction: The transformative utopian impulse for the health of the planet relates to people’s propensity to create a better world. This specific form of meaning-making could help explain the attitude-behavior gap found in the literature about environmental issues. However, to date there are no validated instruments in the Italian context, which limits the possibility of conducting studies to investigate its impact. This study aimed to validate the Italian version of the Transformative Utopian Impulse for Planetary Health Scale (TUIPHS-I) and analyze its predictive validity in the relationship between environmental attitudes and behaviors. Methods: A total of 700 participants completed the Transformative Utopian Impulse for Planetary Health Scale (TUIPHS-I), the New Ecological Paradigm - Revised (NEP-R) and the Pro-Environmental Behavior Scale (PEBS). The four-factor structure of the TUIPHS-I was checked through a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and a t-test was performed to investigate gender differences in the levels of the general dimension of the TUIPHS-I, as well as its sub-dimensions. Finally, a hierarchical multiple regression (HMR) model was carried out to test the incremental validity of TUIPHS-I on the relationship between NEP-R and PEBS. Results: The TUIPHS-I showed a good fit for the four-factor structure and good internal consistency. The t-test showed that women had higher scores than men on both the TUIPHS-I and its sub-dimensions. Finally, TUIPHS-I was found to have incremental validity as contributing to a significant increase in the variance explained in the NEP-R and PEBS relationship. Discussion: The study confirmed the validity of the TUIPHS-I in the Italian context and provides scholars with a reliable tool to investigate this construct. Furthermore, the results suggest the importance of considering people’s meaning making, along with their attitudes, to design specific interventions for the promotion of pro-environmental behaviors.